Driveling twaddle by an old flapdoodle.

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dark poetry

The pathetic bitch just lay before my eyes,
we each blamed the other for her horrible lines.
I had once dreamed of her as a flawless beauty,
but her loveliness was soon all too fleeting.
Everything about her soon disgusted me.

She beamed as I hacked away and mutilated her.
Such beatings were horrible, she no longer was fair,
not lovely as once I’d imagined. She was my obsession,
she had to be better, no – I demanded perfection.
I swore at her, insulted her, I’d not let her rest.

Her excruciating pain was caused by my emasculation,
as I twisted her limbs, she bled and cried out my damnation.
I never shed tears. I was her god, her creator; I owned her.
Angered I was, by what she’d become in my hands.
No longer did she sing her sweet angelic song.

Her nightmare was my blind fury. As her cruel and ruthless master,
I swore obscenities and pointed out her flaws; her heart was shattered.
I pondered her shredding – me killing her. Where could I hide?
Should I kill us both? Maybe that was it; murder-suicide.
Thus ending our miserable suffering, both would just die.

Without me, she would not exist. Mutilation continued;
I hacked off pieces, yet that suffering twaddle endured.
I attached new members, only to rip them away as crap;
I ignored her cries for mercy as I tossed her limbs as scrap,
replacing them with her rip-torn skin; still oozing blood.

Was her beauty hidden or gone? I ripped at her face.
She was mine to mold, to satiate my perverted desires.
Everything, from her disfigured hair flowing down
to her awkward stumbling feet, was to gratify me.
Her suffering would end with my metered pleasure.

I deemed us inhuman. A mere dullard of life, all that she was.
Her reasons for existing were meeting my ruthless demands.
She failed. Each day I emptied myself into her, more beatings.
Her tolerance for my impatience stroked her pleasurable feelings,
her loving and caring endurance infuriated me all the more.

I was disgusted. All that time. All the work. All our suffering.
Yet, lain before me that pathetic little twat blamed me.
Exhausted, I thought this would be the end for us both.
Barely breathing, her heart murmuring along with mine,
our time together had neared its end, soon it was done.

One final scream! And then; calmly I stared, feeling a bit proud.
My anguish gone, I muttered the sounds of her words aloud
just as she set them before me. Slowly, she began to change.
That poisonous little worm became my lovely butterfly.
She smiled at me. Then she pouted, both sensuous and shy.

We reached out to each other one final time.
Soon, she would be with eternity, but somehow still mine.
I wept as my pleasure mixed with regret and my sorrow.
After setting her release for after sunrise, tomorrow,
I abandoned my poor little poem to whatever might follow.

Bill Reynolds, 9/4/2017

Know the gaps and mind them well. Look both ways, or deal with hell

But he who, having no touch of the Muses’ madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman. ~ Plato, Phaedrus

Hence poetry implies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness. Aristotle, Poetics

Love the art, poor as it may be, which thou hast learned, and be content with it, making thyself neither the master nor the servant of any man. ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

Crazy hair piled up high framing piercing eyes of molten steel,
eyes with a warning smirk of dark trouble and danger
should one touch the shadow of her magic,
thus revealing a turbulent tormented storming soul —
Her wildly pursed red lips inviting living spirits to approach,
still suggesting thoughtful caution of a forbidden mystery,
before approaching near he hears her bittersweet
calling voice echoing deep within his chest,
from the savage throbbing and quivering in delirious frenzy,
he sees dark powers flashing from her black fingertips.

Within her passionate realm a shining moon and stars,
safe from the unrestrained bedlam of magical battles, the sky
enlightens their whirling and spellbound excitement,
dancing into dark night sounds of rapturous laughter;
echoing sighs and resounding venomous frightening cries.
A vehement sorceress casting spells with her thighs,
“Relax, dear man, my sensing pleasure is the rendering
of your haughty spirit into a new submissive being,
tamed forever by your seductive enchantress.”
As she raged, he endured her loving, pounding thunder,
In his toil and trouble, the fire of the witch’s cauldron bubbled,
yet her maddening deadly cries of passion calmed his fears.

Brilliant flashings in darkened skies; fair and foul scents of burning flesh hover;
his body now scorched and red, his mind mixed with passion and mania
as their unrestrained magic erupts into an abyss of souls, nothing but dead.
Yet, willingly he knowingly gives over his being,
his soul, and all he is, was, or ever will be, to her mystical dominance.
Her dark, unconsoled audacious spirit reigns over his battle lost, hers won in the fog of filthy air.
Underground, her biting and pulling him into this night of pain and pleasure,
he is now terminally seduced by this lovingly brash and ruling mistress.
Painfully submitting his pride, his manner, his life and being,
seeking the comfort of her mystical kiss
as he witnesses to her power and takes in his pain,
he kneels before the touch and the torch of his witch, worshipping at her feet.

In his delirium he experiences euphoria – the ecstasy of pushing aside his anguish and agony,
as she hovers over him and conjures the revoking of his pain at her whim by her will,
she elevates him from the torturous tedium of a miserable existence of sheltered boredom
to a triumphant cloud of comfort and challenge, now subjected to random
spellbinding musings of a mad mistress molding this man into her mate and lover;
expunging his pain with the pleasure and purity of the magical realism produced by fantasticfantasies as they dance through flames of orgasmic delights devoid of depressing doldrums.

She promised lives of incarnate pleasure and pain;
he as her servient lover, she as his muse and provocateur;
together they sail and they fly through time and space,
he enthralled by her power, she his bellwether to the underworld of a mysterious life,
entrapped by the freedom making two dark souls one bright god and goddess,
master and mistress of all roads and all kingdoms,
their love and mating shall live forever as the forbidden man and his queen of all witches,
never resting or sleeping while forever seeking a peace from their lives of tempest-tossed wonder.
When sounds of the night excite; when the crashing of thunder, lightning, or rain are right;
listen for cries of lovers in pain seeking the pleasures of the witch and her inamorato.

Bill Reynolds 1/24/2017

Night or day, look both ways. The gaps can harm ya, mind them all.

My original idea for this came from the Eagles’ song, ‘Witchy Woman.’ I wanted to “poetic” this idea up further to something about loving witches. Then, ‘Black Magic Woman’ by Santana, while not much for lyrics, bewitched my spirit with his awesome sound. As my imagination drifted, I considered (and used) scenes of the witches from Macbeth. I imagine ‘non-wiccan’ male relationships with a female witch (wicce) to be one of forbidden mystery, good and bad, light and dark, yin and yang. I can’t imagine the witch, no matter how loving, as anything but aggressively dominant, unyielding, yet still caring, nurturing, and protecting. I wanted a struggle. I tried to shed as much of my witch stereotyping as I could, yet keep the drama of the loving, in-control, witch-bitch that captured my thoughts. Is this poetry or prose, fact or fiction, fantasy or reality? Do you want to be either one of the two? Both? Neither?

Lay your kiss upon my lips, this parting now so ends our mix,
this love of ours death has eclipsed.
You’re not wrong, of us to deem
that our days were but a dream;
‘tis not our lust yet flown away,
so little time we’re here to stay,
in this night, the last we share,
we end this passion that we bear.
Did it happen as it so seemed?
Did it happen as in my dreams?
Was it true, now comes to this?
Press your love upon my lips.

I stand alone before you now,
into your care, my final vow –
my life I offer to your hand
eternal love’s last grains of sand,
slipping slowly where you stand.
Weep not for us, lost to the deep,
from your breast let love not seep.
It was a dream, and as we dreamed
our heart’s desire was as it seemed.
Before I die, my one last wish,
Upon my lips – your final kiss.

Bill Reynolds 7/7/2017

Inspired by Poe’s A Dream Within a Dream…Listen to it while reading my poem again. You’ll see…

This is my second post in a series about the paradox of love. It is a little different in that it’s about a man I’ve met, and a couple in love. I’ve included two of his poems.

Let’s answer this question: What is the best hoped-for outcome of any relationship?

Even Grimm’s Fairy Tales don’t finish with the “and they lived happily ever after” fantasy. The best we can hope for is, until death do us part. Barring the end of the movie The Notebook, murder-suicide pacts, or certain accidents; someone gets left. And we are often made miserable by our loss, about being left without someone we love, or about how that happened.

I don’t know John Gorow well. We attend the same writer’s group. John’s an old timer in the group; I’m new. He agreed to allow me to publish the story he related to me, and the poems he wrote. It is a remarkable and inspirational story. His poems are wonderful.

Joan and John Gorow met in 1969, when both were recovering from divorce. Prior to their marriage in 1972, Joan told John that she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). According to John, Joan’s health setbacks did not begin for about 28 years. Since 2000, her MS was a problem. Then came breast cancer. While treatment led to a full recovery, a Parkinson’s diagnosis soon followed, in addition to her worsening MS.

For approximately 15 years, John was Joan’s constant companion and full-time caregiver. As Joan’s health continued to deteriorate, the burden on John increased. In response to that challenge, John wrote the following beautiful, heart-wrenching poem.

***CAREGIVER
by John Gorow

Time moves on
Inconvenient impairments become life altering
Legs don’t do what she wants
Hands have difficulty holding things

Normal chores are no longer normal
Cooking becomes dangerous
Washing dishes is impossible
Clothes can’t be carried to the washer while using a walker
The vacuum can’t be pushed
Self-worth begins to fade.

The one who has been cared for must now give care
She has cooked for me
It is my turn to cook for her
She washed our clothes
I will do the washing
She kept our home clean
I will try my best

It is assumed we all can dress ourselves
That is no longer true
Showering on her own can’t be done
No more going to the bathroom by herself

Memory slips – confusion arrives
What day is it?
Where are we?
I need patience
We talk, and then we laugh – I cry on the inside

Kids tell me to get help
I finally do – one day a week
Who is it harder on – her or me?
I get some freedom – she does not.

Caregiving is tough
Better than the alternative
I want her as she was
It will not happen
But then again, I do have her

(October 17, 2013)

***

Seven months ago, on October 22, 2016, John no longer had Joan with him. Since then, John has suffered and struggled with his pain. He wrote the following poem to directly address grief in response to the prompt: what brought you to your knees? In the fifth stanza, he directly addresses the paradox of love, vis-à-vis his grief.

***

GRIEF
by John Gorow

Who are you, grief?
Why do you pester me?
You have dropped me to my knees.

I knew I would have to deal with you,
But is it forever?
You keep lingering in my life.

I think you may be gone,
Then you grab me once again.
My laughs turn into tears.

Others have told me about you,
But you don’t behave the same with all.
I can’t determine when you will rise again.

What a paradox.
I have tried to hate you,
But without love you wouldn’t be here.

I know we will take the rest of my journey together,
So I must accept you.
That acceptance will be slow.

You should know
I will no longer dread the tears you bring me,
You will need to accept that.

You can stay with me,
But I will slowly rise from my knees.
I will move forward, but not forget.

(May 18, 2017)

***

I want to close this post with the same line John ended his email to me. It’s a beautiful one-line poem of five words.

“I miss her very much.”

***

As we look both ways and mind the gaps,
let’s not forget that some of us are suffering.
Let us love and support each other, and at all times, let us cherish those we love –
paradox or not.

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Bill

I'm retired -- now a hard-working writer learning more about the craft. I live in Texas, am a pluviophile (love rainy days), and I enjoy the intrigue human nature. I'm happy, enjoy life, appreciate nature, and experience both awe and wonder (Oprah is wrong). I'm an enigmatic outgoing introvert, skeptical by nature, and atheist. I request good pizza and a fine ale for my last meal. Join us on this journey.